has happened, its incomprehensibility. ‘It’s awful,’ says Sophie. ‘Just awful.’ Sophie examines Kevin’s hand – his fingernails are pathologically well-maintained, the sort of hands you see in adverts for very expensive watches. ‘To think it happened on our doorstep.’ It’s another boisterous evening. The rain is ticking quickly on the windows and the trees in the front garden are in spasm. Sophie touches Kevin’s hand and he pats her knee; she touches his hand, he pats her knee. They can’t get through a minute without touching each other. When a gust rattles something metallic up the drive, Sophie grabs at a cushion. It’s as if the monster’s out there in the gloom, making an assessment of the security arrangements, and we’re their last protection.
‘His name was Henry,’ Kevin tells us, but he doesn’t know his surname. ‘He used to pitch camp out on The Maer,’ he adds, looking to his wife for verification, and Sophie agrees that Henry used to sleep on The Maer. At night, she adds, they would sometimes see him settling down for the night, in the shelter of the trees. Once or twice he waved to her, when she was at the bedroom window, and she waved back, but they never spoke. ‘Kept himself to himself,’ observes Kevin.
‘Nobody knew much about him,’ Sophie contributes. Kevin tries to recall the last time he saw Henry, but cannot; Sophie also tries, and sadly draws a blank. Twenty minutes we’re there, learning nothing, reassuring the Fazakerlys that they are not going to be murdered in their beds, but to lock up at night anyway. Of course they’ll lock up at night. They always do, always have done. Kevin as a kid used to lock his toy cupboard at night, you just know he did. They’re more likely to piss on their twelve-foot hand-woven organically dyed Turkish rug than leave a window open after bedtime.
We might as well have been interviewing ourselves, but Ian loves these house calls, even if he doesn’t take a liking to the residents, which is the case in about fifty per cent of our visits. He gets a buzz from checking out where people live, because Ian is convinced that a very large proportion of our fellow citizens are less than entirely sane, and it’s only when you get inside their houses that you see what lies behind the day-to-day normalness. Sometimes you have to look hard, but there’s inevitably something, a crack in the mask. And as far as Ian is concerned, our fruitless session with Mr and Mrs Fazakerly has proved his case. ‘Weird as Mormons,’ he murmurs, the moment Sophie has closed the door. ‘Did you see the framed menus? In the hall?’
‘I did.’
‘Signed by the chef, for fuck’s sake.’
‘And his handshake? Get more grip from an empty glove.’
‘Creepy creepy creepy. But’, Ian goes on, raising a finger for the point that would settle the issue, ‘did you clock the microwave?’
‘Everyone’s got a microwave.’
‘Yeah. But on top of it? Obvious as a bus.’
‘What?’
‘You didn’t notice?’
He taps a fingertip beside an eye, dipping an eyebrow to signify shrewdness. ‘Nothing wasted on this boy. Chief Inspector Mowbray, the early years. You were there.’
‘Yes, OK. What was it?’
‘An item from Peggy’s purple shelf. Debbie Does Dallas.’
‘Who’s Peggy?’
In the drive, under a sort of extended porch, there is a new Mazda MX5, gold. ‘This’ll be hers,’ Ian instantly concludes. ‘The master vehicle is in the garage, bet you. Kev’s more a Mercedes kind of guy. This dinky wee machine is the lady wife’s.’
‘Who’s Peggy?’
Ian gives the Mazda a once-over. He peers through the windscreen at something on the front seat, putting the finishing touches to his profile of the Fazakerlys. ‘Granny Thistle,’ he answers. ‘She’s on the list for tomorrow morning,’ and then he explains.
The first thing you need to know about Peggy Thurlow, says Ian, is that she regards it as a point of honour never to be nice to tourists, no matter how servile they may be. She’s never been known to smile at anyone who is clearly Not From Around Here, and has a reputation for being less than overwhelmingly warm to most non-outsiders too. Peggy’s views on citizenship are hardline: you don’t really belong to this town unless you have roots that go back three generations or more. Peggy’s roots reach back to the nineteenth century and the family of her husband – the late Mr Thurlow, a cheery old fellow by all accounts, whose love of Peggy was for many people one of life’s great mysteries – have been here since the Jurassic era. Pure-bred indigenous customers are generally on firmer ground with Peggy, but she’s prone to sudden reversals. Just because you’re in her good books on a Tuesday, there’s no guarantee that you’ll still be in favour come Friday, because Peggy is a gossip magnet and as changeable as a baby. Peggy has something on everyone and you’re guilty until proven innocent in her private judicial system. She’s either for you or against you, with very little in the way of middle ground. Someone passes on a rumour that you’ve been hitting the bottle and yelling at the kids – you’re cast out into the darkness, pending evidence to the contrary. The warmth of human kindness is buried pretty deep within the heart of Peggy, but if you’re one of the happy band that has earned her approval, she couldn’t be nicer. You want a box of grade-A Cuban cigars for your recently promoted husband? Peggy will get them for you. You need an obscure magazine, Peggy will supply it for you: Japanese Malt Whisky Review, The Kite-Flyer, Canoes and Canoeists – no problem. She also has a sideline in personal finance, for those of the favoured few whose pay packets occasionally fail to meet outgoings. Rumour has it she once loaned a client a couple of grand, at very advantageous rates, to subsidise the acquisition of an E-Type Jag. Then again, woe betide anyone who doesn’t repay on the stipulated date. Some hapless sod once settled up a couple of days past the deadline and Peggy burned his ears off with a lecture on the virtue of thrift.
When we walk into Peggy’s shop the next morning, her reaction seems to suggest that she thinks she might recognise Ian, but she holds back the half-smile until he flips the badge. Ask a little kid to describe a lovely old granny and Peggy is more or less what you’d get: about five-one, approximately oval in silhouette, purple-grey candy-floss hair, soft fat face, tweedy skirt and chunky cable-knit cardigan with big leather buttons. ‘And what can I do for you gentlemen?’ she asks, and her eyes have the look that you see in people’s eyes when they learn that some unexpected money is coming to them. She’s standing behind the counter and right behind her head, at eye level, is Peggy’s purple shelf. There’s a tray of batteries and a selection of key rings and cigarette lighters, and alongside them there are Peggy’s adult videos. The slipcases have been removed and masking tape stuck on to the spines, and Peggy has written non-offensive versions of the titles on to the masking tape – or rather, that seems to be the idea, but the lettering is in thick inch-high capitals, purple, and even a ten-year-old slow-wit could work them out: S ME, F ME; EBONY GANG-B; SURFER F-FEST. It’s hard to imagine how it goes. What do the grubby punters say to her? ‘Box of matches, packet of extra-strong mints, Exchange & Mart. Oh, and Butt-F Bonanza up there, next to Keep on F-ing. Any good? Really? OK, I’ll take that as well, while you’re at it.’ Perhaps the cuddly little old porn peddler assigns you to the ranks of the damned if you ask.
Sure enough, Peggy has something on Henry – not much, but more than anyone else so far. Every twenty days, ‘regular as clock-work’, Henry would come into the shop to buy a packet of twenty cigarettes. Surprisingly, given Henry’s rootless status, Peggy seems to have been well disposed towards him: he was her only customer for unfiltered cigarettes, she says, and she always made sure she had a packet in stock, just for Henry. His name was Henry Yarrow
